Gyeonggi Province Conducts Inspection of Live Seafood Country-of-Origin Labeling

[Suwon Ilbo=Park Nohoon Reporter] Gyeonggi Province announced on the 5th that it will conduct country-of-origin labeling guidance and inspection on live seafood products with high possibility of origin fraud from the 12th to the 26th.

Priority inspection targets are live seafood products including live scallops, live sea bream, live yellowtail, live king crab, live turban shells, and live conger eel, which have seen recent increases in import volume and domestic circulation or are during fishing moratorium periods, creating concerns about origin deception. These products are primarily imported from Japan, China, Russia, and other countries.

The Province will conduct on-site inspections at specialty seafood restaurants, sushi restaurants, and traditional markets handling these products, and will also monitor online marketplaces and delivery apps in consideration of changed consumer purchasing patterns due to recent COVID-19 spread, while carrying out enforcement and guidance activities.

According to the ‘Act on Country-of-Origin Labeling of Agricultural and Fishery Products,’ country-of-origin labeling target seafood at restaurants includes 15 items (flatfish, black rockfish, sea bream, loach, conger eel, octopus, pollock excluding dried, mackerel, cutlassfish, squid, blue crab, yellow corvina, tuna, monkfish, and webfoot octopus). However, all live seafood products kept or displayed for sale must display country-of-origin in storage facilities such as aquariums or live fish vehicles, and if the same species, must be kept separated and divided by country-of-origin to prevent mixing.

If country-of-origin is not indicated for live seafood products, fines of up to 10 million won may be imposed depending on storage quantity and sales price. If labeling differs from the actual country-of-origin, convictions can result in up to 10 years imprisonment or fines of up to 150 million won, which may be applied concurrently.

Lee Haewon, Director of Agricultural Products Distribution at the Province, stated, “Since freshness as well as country-of-origin serve as purchase factors when buying seafood, country-of-origin labeling is very important.” He added, “To protect both consumers and producers, we will thoroughly identify fraudulent misrepresentation of imported seafood as domestic products and do our utmost to supply safe food ingredients.”